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148615-so-dominion-and-exiles-page-2
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8 Content Exactlly. We can see that the Exiles do do the types of things that the Dominion does. But they do it on a smaller scale. So, when the Exiles burn a village to the ground because the inhabitants didn't give them what they wanted, it is simply the enacted "Join or die" speech the Dominion is so villainised for. "Do what we want or die." It is the same thing on a smaller scale. The Dominion has the resources to give a credibkle threat to an entire world. The Exiles clearly have the resources and the will to do it on a smaller scale. The devs haven't removed the human nature from the Exiles. While the Dominion is no where near benevolent, we can clearly see that neither of the factions are. They use similar tactics for similar purposes. To do what's best for themselves and their people over others who are not part of them. Edited January 7, 2016 by Bytek | |} ---- ---- The post wasn't. *shrug* Not all posts are in line with the OP's intent. Case in point, the very first response in the thread is from me sticking up for an Exile race even though dominion is my chosen faction. le sigh...... This post doesn't purport that "All large societies behave in similar ways". it purports that larger societies have a larger impact. And it also purports that if we did exmine the topic, we would see that the exiles have a similar nature. not because they are a large society. But because of similar actions. It's not saying the size of the society is the reason for the action. It's saying the size of the society is the reason for the size of the effect of the action. My premise is that the two factions already have similar actions no matter how large or small they are. In the discussion, the Exiles would not have been called a "large society" when compared and contrasted with the Dominion. Exactlly. My 3 eyed mug is WAY too pretty not to hold the entire mechari race as a good looking race. ;) Edited January 7, 2016 by Bytek | |} ---- I'm sure I'm gonna get hounded for this later, but I don't remember any scenario in the game where the Exiles even offered the "Join or Die" choice. Like in the Auroria incident, I don't recall them bothering to do that with all the Lowborn farmers. They just went straight for biological warfare. I guess maybe they learned that from the Dominion with Arboria? Though that might work in their favor since the Dominion tends to bully people with the "Join or Die" speech anyway. On another note, it looks some individuals of the playable races (I think I've seen representations of all of them) have allied with Marauders and Darkspur and not just that one example in Owanee Basin. The Gauntlet Expedition and the Crowe Gang in Algoroc are examples of this as well. If I had a choice, I wouldn't ally with either Exile or Dominion and join up with the Freebots instead. Both sides are waaaaay too evil for my taste. Dominion just happened to be the faction with the races I liked the most. | |} ---- ---- Freebots would be a good choice. Or Lopp. They have a nice tribal simplicity" going for them. But despite negative aspects, If I was to be honest, I'd probably opt for the Dominion. You figure, what they do is really no different than what modern western first world nations do. We take the resources of people who have less and use them for out benefit. We use bullying tactics to do it. These are rough truths but ultimately, those resources are used to make my quality of life better. And the size of the Dominion ensures that no one is going to be able to do it to us. Ensures it as much as it can be ensured anyways. The Exiles clear the Torine from an area to harvest their primal life. Again, no different than what our modern western nations do. Haiti is a dead land and we ouseted Sadam Housein simply for their resources. And there is not a lot of people leaving the comforts of first world nations to live in the dirt. The smaller organizations can be romanticized but there is a reason large nations wanted to be large nations. Edited January 7, 2016 by Bytek | |} ---- That's why Freebots are the way to go, they have tech! Best of both worlds! Sure they don't have a lot of resources yet, but once they get their society settled, I think quality of life will be pretty good with them. Also, Lopp can be downright evil. Marshal Yatish in Malgrave was downright brutal to the Falkrin. Yeah, they were asking for it but he went as far punishing the next generation (before they were born) as well. I think most of us IRL would opt for Dominion, but not everyone wants to make playing WS into an RL simulator so I can understand wanting to choose factions and/or races with different lifestyles. I mean, I'm no psychotic murderer but if the way I played games reflected my real life values . . . ~cough~GTA~cough~ On the other hand, I also can't bear to be evil (within the choices given) in the Dragon Age universe. So I suppose it just depends on the game. | |} ---- Lol. I definitely get that. That means you have the heart or an RPer. Speaking of.. the vastly differing choices we make in game are likely a reflection of the persoanlities we've given our toons. So, who knows what we would actually choose. I guess it would largly depend on what and where we started out in the WS universe. e.g.: Draken are honor bound to the emporer from birth. So they have an awfully big push toward the Dominion. While, being raised as an Exile woukld probably encourage me to want to stay in those types of environments. either with the Exiles proper or as some type of bandits. I know none of my Exile toons have any desire to join the Dominion. And of course, .......... most all of it would depend on who spurned me while growing up. :P Mwa hah ha ha ha! | |} ---- Most reasonable people would. The reason the topic keeps coming up is because there's a lot of unreasonable people. Believe me, I find it just as tiresome as you do to once again go another round of "Yes, the Exiles and Dominion both do bad things. No, the Exiles do not do as many bad things for comparably bad reasons as the Dominion does." I find it just as tiresome to have to repeatedly say "Clean streets do not justify heavy-handed, judgmental, militaristic fascism.." and "Declaring your own superiority based on religious tenets that you wrote explicitly because your prior claim to power evaporated is inexcusable." and "Intent matters". Reasonable people should not have to debate these things. And yet, here we are once again. I agree with you that I also don't remember any scenario in the game where the Exiles implement "Join, Surrender, or Die". The place that comes closest to my knowledge is the Exile's handling of the Torine in Celestion--and in reality, the Exiles weren't interested in the Torine at all. The Auroria incident has no relevance whatsoever to that doctrine, which is about how you approach a society upon deciding that they have the potential to be an asset or a threat worth taking seriously. The Lowborn Cassians are members of the Dominion and are in fact already actively at war with the Exiles, just like the rest of the Dominion. They have been for centuries. Last time I checked, the entire post contained the part I highlighted. I didn't quote the entire post because the only part that is required to disprove your point is the part I did quote. And frankly, I consider stuff like this to be a very useful reality check. They allow me to assess a necessary precondition to having a reasonable discussion: when someone is shown to be irrefutably wrong about something, are they able/willing to back up, admit it, concede the point, and move on? If the answer is "no", why should I bother trying to have a reasonable discussion with something who is either unwilling or unable to have a reasonable discussion? | |} ---- You know what they say about people who do the same thing over and over and expect different results ... ;) | |} ---- ---- ---- But that question has an answer Tex : CHUA | |} ---- Obviously not, my brother from a furry mother. If that was the "answer" then we wouldn't be having this discussion, eh wot? ;) The Chua look great. They have wonderful animations and the entire lore behind them is hilarious and perfect for Wildstar. I don't know if it's the non-gendered approach (we've both heard that complaint over and over since beta) or if it's they are "too" cute or just "too insane" or what. Whatever it is, it didn't work. At least not like it was supposed to. | |} ---- What would need to be fixed first and foremost is the way the dominion side handles npc player interaction. It's important for the player character to be the hero in the story, or if they are a villain or just darker character but then because they either have their twisted reason for doing so or because they are put in a position they must. The dominion as an entity fits the former, but as a player character the game never gives you the feeling you are a paragon for the dominion way of doing things. Indeed where the exiles have you generally run and be hailed a hero for helping, the dominion gives you contempt and rewards you with not being executed for your services. Notable exceptions but it is the general trend. So nothing that can reasonably be done at this stage. Edited January 7, 2016 by Jelletje | |} ---- So building an entire statue for you in the village, giving you the hero title doesn't do it anymore these days or what? | |} ---- ---- Technically they didn't really build a statue since it's a hologram, but that's details. Edited January 7, 2016 by Jelletje | |} ---- ---- It's cooler since it keeps getting updated to your current appearance. For the Dominion, there are still some "you're lucky I or my objective is fine or else..." instead of "my hero!", even after Ellevar, but it's much rarer, and usually comes from Pheydra (who's just tsundere towards you and won't admit it yet) and the Chua (because they're Chua). I'm currently replaying the Exile missions and by Drusera do I want to punch Durek in the face and dope-slap Belle for causing such huge messes. Whether on the Exiles or Dominion side, I sometimes feel like the only sane person, though. Edited January 7, 2016 by Shakyntani | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- See, this is a great example of the problem: the setting is simply written badly for what they want to achieve. I hate to be so critical, but there really is no other way to put it. On so many levels Carbine has constructed an unsympathetic, villainous faction in their portrayal of the Dominion, while at the same time have a notion that there is some nuance that overcomes their enormous, broad-brush, prima facia efforts at establishing the Dominion as the villain faction. Let's take a simple example on the aesthetic level; the race make-up. Excluding the humans, on the Dominion side you have Crystal robots, gerbils and saurian monsters. Balancing that you have on the Exile side Rock people, space Zombies and cat girl/rabbit boys. Looking at just the races I think, regardless of any other trappings, the Exiles were simply given the better hand in terms of attracting people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is something so simple as 'Drakken are fugly and Aurin are kawaii'. Instead I'm saying that the races on the Dominion side has a pronounced tendency towards inhumanity, which is a characteristic that I believe contributes to an initial emotional distance and a lack of 'impulse buy', so to speak. -Mechari: comparatively few Mechari faces can be made conventionally attractive, while a fair number are completely inhuman. Artistically interesting, yes, but completely inhuman. -Chua: the lack of gender is a big, big factor in creating emotional distance. Furry and chubby as they may be, Chua are firmly lodged in the 'cute animal' emotional zone (or so I contend). -Drakken: Drakken combine many animal features, but they most prominently highlight reptilian features. Not a problem, but again, reptiles are not noted for their 'cuddle appeal'. Overall, and again let me say this is not a blanket criticism of 'they suck', but that Dominion races are less initially appealing to large groups of people. Initial impressions count. | |} ---- ---- I'm not sure if it still happens, but I remember that if you stood around long enough there was a little bit of a dialogue between those two, where the Aurin points out that she is saving his life only for him to be tortured by the ISI. They may have taken out that dialogue though (although it would remain true, of course, given the nature of the ISI). | |} ---- Can you be more specific, they all look the same. | |} ---- I'm sure any Dominion citizen an Exile helped would get similar treatment as well. Blackhood base shows them torturing a Cassian just because they find it entertaining. Also just to be clear, I'm not arguing the Exiles are more evil with my previous two sentences. Just bringing up that this is one of the ways both factions behave similarly. Though I guess if people want to argue about it, feel free to get all nitpicky about it anyway. | |} ---- is there any option for a line like that being taken out of context when weighed against all the actual examples that come after it? So, we have one of two options, the poster intended to compare who was better or the poster didn't. The examples don't support poster trying to say who is better. The poster specifically states they were not doing it. So, are we able/willing to back up, admit it, concede the point, and move on? Do we pee against the wind? or do we ignore what just happened and pretend we were never wrong to begin with? Ultimately, you have a good standard..... as long as it is applied across the board. We all fall short of pure ideals but I think it is the efforts that count. really, Tex? Do we have some kind of history that I am forgetting about? :huh: That said, I agree with this: Edited January 7, 2016 by Bytek | |} ---- Do tell, what was the context in which the statement below does not in fact include a direct, deliberate, and unambiguous comparison between the Dominion and the Exiles? | |} ---- ---- Fortunately no. I am proof of that. And I think you mean 'Aurin' alts. Edited January 8, 2016 by Mental Surge | |} ---- To be honest, I find this to be one of the more problematic arguments and a sign of bad writing, not least because it puts me in mind of a saying by Bill Buckley; -"If one man pushes an old woman in front of a bus, and another man pushes that old woman out of the way of the bus, it makes no moral sense to describe both of these men as the kind of men that push old ladies." Now, lest one think this is inapplicable, Buckley was addressing the argument that the CIA is morally indistinguishable from the KGB. The fact that two organizations act in superficially similar ways does not mean that they are morally indistinguishable: you must also have some idea about their greater goal. If there is one single thing that I think makes this situation different from how the same situation was done correctly in Star Wars: The Old Republic, it comes down to this: the Dominion appears to be incurably racist. I think that this is something that is overlooked, but it makes a huge difference: if you want to play as, say, a Zabrak, a Twilek, a Cathar, a Chiss, whatever (Togruta?), you can play Republic or you can play Sith. The Sith may be racists and (literally) run on hate, but they are also meritocratic. A slave can rise to the highest levels of power in the Sith Empire (again, literally). In fact, on the Sith Fleet hub there is a Twilek Sith Lord who explicitly points out that the Sith respect power over everything... including race. It may seem like a small point, but it has huge implications for the storyline and the moral universe: if the Sith were to win, the Republic and it's planets would be in for loads of hurt, but they would survive. By contrast, everything that is known about the conflict between the Aurin and the Dominion indicates that if the Exiles lose, Aurins can at best look forward to eternal slavery and, more likely, genocide. This is where the attempts by the writers to create moral ambiguity between the factions completely falls apart: the ISI is a sinister, morally compromised spy agency advancing a genocidal dictatorship. The Black Hoods are... a sinister, morally compromised spy agency opposing a genocidal dictatorship. By the way, this is one problem that I actually have a relatively pat solution for... which is not likely to ever be implemented, but I'm going to explain anyway; -Have an expansion where Aurin become available for Dominion characters, and, let's say, Drakken, available for Exiles. It takes a very small retcon, but it completely fixes the biggest problem of the Dominion crossing the moral event horizon: all they have to do is establish that Auroria (sp?) wasn't ruled by a single ruler, and that one of Maya Evenstar's rivals alerted the Dominion in order to force the Evenstar faction of Aurin off-world. Establish that this heretofore unknown faction of Aurin are now in control of Auroria (except for one continent given over to Dominus), bing-bang-boom, done. Have this new faction of Aurin be led by Queen Boudicca Sundragon (or Nastia McNinja, whatever), a nice little movie setting things up and expand Aurin class choices to include, say, Warriors and Engineers (and start offering paid race change, natch). License to print money, cat girls aplenty for both sides. Now, that may sound silly (and it is), but it completely changes the moral universe: the Aurin are no longer in a fight for the survival of their species, but a fight between factions of a species. It changes Queen Maya from Mother Teresa to a Medici in a war for the wooden throne. Drakken you don't even need to retcon anything. Just say that one tribe switched sides because Drakken live for challenge, and the Dominion is the greatest foe anyone can fight. Let's be honest, no one cares about what race the Exiles would get. Edited January 8, 2016 by Buzzsaw | |} ---- ---- Yeah, sorry, obvious troll is obvious and in the end Ildur is right--we've seen this circus before. It wasn't fun or even particularly interesting the first time, and it's not any better this time. Enjoy. | |} ---- They seem kinda big on honor, though. A Draken rebellion would have to include something "justifying" it. Fortunately, the recent Loremageddon update about Kezrek implies that "being a weak/flawed leader" counts as a valid reason for being overthrown. If enough Draken got suspicious of Myrcalus's absence and guessed that he was hiding some kind of crippling condition instead of stepping down or dying in combat so a better leader could take his place, that might do it. Alternatively, if they thought something had happened to the Emperor and the only-appearing-as-a-hologram thing was a coverup by other Luminai and/or the ICI, well... the Draken are technically loyal to the Emperor (and only if that emperor gained power honorably, instead of having their predecessor poisoned like Vorias did) and not to the Dominion itself. A Draken revolt out to rescue/avenge their missing Emperor would be an interesting twist. Edited January 8, 2016 by Ekzentric Lohner | |} ---- Ehhhh, not really on this part. The Dominion basically talks a big game about the eradication of the Exiles, but they've never walked the talk. It feels mostly like propaganda to embolden the troops and populace, and perhaps incite some fear in the enemy. Given their reaction to everyone else on Nexus, they probably wouldn't care so much about the Exile races if they, well, stopped being Exiles in behavior and loyalties. Current "war criminals" aside. The Dominion never targeted the Aurin for eradication. They targeted Arboria for resource harvesting, Aurin were irrelevant and mostly just collateral damage they had to justify. If I recall correctly, the Chua made the push for reaping Arboria because they NEEDED a new resource world. They're perfectly fine with the Aurin running around Nexus un-aligned. Shit, you HELP some in a few instances playing Dominion-side, at the very least in CoGS. In fact, I'd contend that the only race they actively attempted to destroy was the Exile humans, and it's been said by devs that it wouldn't be too hard for an Exile human to actually become a member of the Dominion. (The war of Gnox was a response to the murder of Dominion diplomats, and we don't actually know what would have happened had the Dominion won. But complete genocide has never been their MO that we've seen. They never bombarded the Mordesh settlements, but they did implement one hell of a terrifying quarantine. I'm not saying they aren't violently racist assholes, but if extermination has ever been the goal they've done a poor job at showing it.) Slavery is also completely out of character for the Dominion, and something they're adamantly against. Both in-game lore and Loremageddon talk from the devs confirms that. Also according to the devs, on Cassus Lowborns actually have it pretty good. They're more or less like the American middle class, but with much less formal education, and much better health care and welfare systems. It's good to be born Dominion, they take care of their own. (Sort of.) The major instances in which we see the Lowborns being shat on by the Dominion are when they give a classist but at least vaguely reasonable explanation for the initial dispursal of a plague's cure, which actually quite well mirrors what we'd do in American society today, and the instance where one family of Highborns treats Lowborns like they're inhuman. Which the other Highborns look at with vocal disgust. And while you're not HIRED to kill the head of that family... Nobody seems to mind that you do. Or that you killed several other Highborns of said family to save kidnapped Lowborns. Edited January 8, 2016 by PennesNoodle | |} ---- ---- Lol that is a very biased way of looking at it. The Mordesh for example, were in danger of killing ALL KNOWN CIVILIZATION with the contagion. The Dominion did the right thing in quarantining their planet. The Granok war also started BECAUSE the granok killed the Dominion ambassadors for no real reason. Decline their offer and threaten them back, but don't just KILL THEM for sending a message. And as we have already discussed, the Dominion more than likely COULD have exterminated their entire species from orbit but didn't. For whatever reason, they opted not to commit genocide. Funny how you claim that the Draken are so savage and hostile, in yet I'm pretty sure the granok only exist to kill things and get drunk. Draken actually do have a strict code of honor. I'm also pretty sure that the Chua did not intentionally make their planet uninhabitable. Yes, they were directly responsible for it for their actions, but making the planet itself uninhabitable was obviously nothing but an unfortunate side effect. Hence why they joined the Dominion as they needed to leave their planet. Damn, that sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? Also not sure if you are aware but Mechari are not simply 'bots'. They are truly sentient just like any other race. And the Dominion attacked the Aurin because they were working with terrorists. If you want to blame anyone, then blame the Exiles for leading the Dominion straight to them, and making them a target. And how is Arboria not a potential threat to them if it's the Aurin home world? More to the point though, the issue I believe, is with how the factions are presented. The Dominion just appear to be stereotypical villains, despite there being so much more to it, and so much potential. There's no reason whatsoever the Dominion's lore and possible justifications for their actions couldn't be shown. The idea that someone presented earlier of the Empire itself being corrupt in the absence of the emperor for example, would not only justify many of the actions we have seen, but also add another layer of depth to the faction. I keep bringing this up but a perfect example is the F2P trailer. The Dominion appear to be generic villains and of course they received little to no spotlight. Edited January 8, 2016 by Mental Surge | |} ---- STOP TAKING MY POSTS OUT OF CONTEXT. I didn't compare them AT ALL in the context you are trying to wiggle here. I said NEITHER of them are evil. That is my OPINION. I didn't once state it as fact or wanted someone to argue with me about it or be rude to me. But you and Ildur jumped on me like the biased idiots you are and bashed me for liking the dominion lore. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you look for a fight in everything? Your snobbery is like... cassian level of snobbery dude. | |} ---- Stay calm Syl, it's not worth it. | |} ---- I love your comment earlier; "The Exiles have the more interesting and good looking races".......................................... Well that's totally not subjective! But I have to give you credit, you have not yet thrown a temper tantrum like a five year old! I'm impressed. You have made it much farther than before! Edited January 9, 2016 by SickToubib MODERATOR EDIT : LANGUAGE | |} ---- ---- ---- "Never get into a beer drinking contest with a Granok. Even if you're a Granok." | |} ---- Can Androids dream be intoxicated? /inb4Mechari aren't Androids | |} ---- I wanna say the devs confirmed they can be but I'd have to look for the source. Hopefully it's in lormageddon. Edit: Bingo! Yes, and yes! "they are known to dream during sleep, though the nature of these dreams is up for debate among non-Mechari. To ensure that Mechari would never have to worry about power generation, the Eldan designed them to consume food and drink like other organic beings. Technically, the Mechari are able to extract trace amounts of primal energy from the materials that they ingest—which in turn is used to fuel their mechanisms. A humorous side effect of this design is that Mechari can actually get drunk" http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/game/loremageddon/mechari/ Edited January 8, 2016 by Bytek | |} ---- Heh. No. I'm sorry if it came off that way. I was mostly just poking good-natured fun at Yas. ;) | |} ---- Ah, I can respect that. No worries. :D | |} ---- Sylqt, I am simply quoting what you said. That is the context. You said the Exiles were more evil than the Dominion. You can throw as many temper tantrums as you like, you can call me a snob, you can USE ALL CAPS and none of those things will change the reality that you said that the Exiles were more evil than the Dominion and I am not taking you out of context at all. Own your words, explain how they were misunderstood, or retract them, I don't care. But do not *cupcake* at me for simply quoting your own statement and attributing it to you. Not at all. I like the Dominion too. I recognize the reality that they are the darker shade of grey in this game, but I still like them. I am looking forward to seeing how the Dominion's storyline develops as they come to realize that their society's foundation is a lie, and I find that aspect of the story far more interesting than the question of whether the Granok will ever be able to kick back and settle in with some beer. You threw a temper tantrum by resorting to all manner of hysterics when your stated and still unretracted position that the Dominion was the lighter shade of grey was challenged. | |} ---- ---- I am now 100% convinced that Espy and Yas are the same person. :lol: :P ;) (I kid, I kid) | |} ---- Bias? Fact: One exile starter area has a big mecha-tree that's getting ready to spill all the Eldans secrets, potentially curing all Mordesh. Dominion (mostly Chua) response? Blow up tree. Fact: There are zero non-Mordesh contagion zombies. Fact: Draken areas in-game are bare dirt, bones and fire. Aurin areas in game (before they're lit on fire by Chua) are green, trees, and plant stuff. You just stated that the Dominion aren't evil because they didn't commit genocide. They didn't exterminate a species from orbit, they simply went in on the ground, so that makes them NOT evil? They weren't going in with cake, and if they had LEFT THEM ALONE, the Granok would have been perfectly happy to stay on the one planet indefinitely. And harvesting an occupied planet for resources, when the planet is no longer a threat? This is somehow justifiable because of past actions that might have been committed when not in possession of all the facts? I call bull. The Dominion is evil, or close enough to make no difference. They act with depraved indifference (or worse) to EVERYONE, from their own citizens, on to every other thing in the galaxy, and justify it with "manifest destiny" type reasoning. | |} ---- The one Aurin who got stuck in the grill....though I guess there was that one village too...and the......hmmm Okay, Aurin get set on fire a lot apparently, yeah... | |} ---- That's funny, there's many people here who have claimed that the Dominion's actions on Arboria differ from their response to other cultures on other worlds because it was punitive--the Aurin were aiding and abetting the Exiles by resupplying them. Are you claiming that the Dominion's typical approach to a new world is to simply take what it wants by force without any effort to even open negotiations with the indigenous people at all? Or is there some other explanation for their actions here that you think explains it? No rich person in America has the legal right to blow away the middle class for fun, and the missions surrounding the Vandarin in Auroria make clear that the Highborn do in fact have that right, even if most of them take a dim view of anyone who actually does so. So no, they're not even remotely like the American middle class. | |} ---- OK, I'll read it again. | |} ---- :P Espy and I certainly both are stubborn and opinionated, but we're not the only ones cursed with that particular combination of personality traits around here. ;) Texperfan would be an unstoppable force if only we could all agree on anything. :lol: | |} ---- Honestly, I think we DO agree on a lot more than we disagree. None of us are uber-leets. We all generally want to err on the side of casual and accessibility - and we all get very passionate about our shared love of the game. I got WAY WAY more horsey with Espy than I wanted to. I am truly sorry for that. Much like you rile me up on occasion, I let her get the better of my ire and I shouldn't have. That's why I just started deleting my terriblest posts from earlier. I don't want another enemy, much less someone who loves the game as much as I do. That's just silly. | |} ---- Maybe that should be a raid boss. So powerful Carbine unites the factions to defeat! It's perfect. | |} ---- "They" refers to the subject of the statement, the Dominon. The verb "are" requires to apply to a direct object (The Dominion are SOMETHING). But we not only have a direct object, we also have a negative complement for the verb (they are NOT something). The direct object of the verb and its complement is everything that follows after: "evil as much as the exiles are". We could analyze it further, like saying that the 'as much' is a quantitative complement: what we are comparing here with the "as" coordinator is the quantitative evil between the Dominion (subject of the first half of the phrase) and the Exiles. This means the only correct way to interpret this phrase is that the Exiles ARE more evil, because the Dominion is NOT as MUCH EVIL as the Exiles are. At best, Sylqt, you worded it poorly. You should have said: This implies neutrality. The Dominion is JUST as quantitatively evil as the Exiles. But that's not what you said. What you said was that they are NOT as much evil as the Exiles are. EDIT: Dammit, people! Don't post when I'm writting a post. :p Edited January 8, 2016 by Ildur | |} ---- The problem is that the way you worded the statement the first time, it could be parsed in two ways, only one of which matched what you apparently intended to say (according to the way you worded the statement the second time). What you meant: "They" (the Dominion) "aren't 'evil'" (the action) "as much as the exile are." (comparing frequency of action) In this parsing, the statement is that the frequency of the Dominion not being "evil" matches the frequency of the Exiles not being "evil", meaning that the two sides are equally evil/not-evil. Equally valid parsing: "They" (the Dominion) "aren't" (negation of following description) "'evil' as much as the exile are." (description being negated) In this parsing, the statement is that the frequency of the Dominion being "evil" does not match the frequency of the Exiles being "evil", meaning either that the Dominion is more evil than the Exiles or that the Dominion is less evil than the exiles. Since your posts on this topic have generally been in defense of the Dominion against charges of being totally the bad guys, this second parsing would thus be taken as a statement that the Dominion were less evil than the Exiles, which is apparently not what you meant to say. It likely differs for different people, but for me (and apparently for Yasfan), the second parsing is the more natural and obvious one. Whether you mistyped the first time (intending to write in the first quoted post what you wrote in the second post I quoted) or just naturally parse statements like this the first way, the ambiguity lead to misunderstanding on both sides, and the further abuse of an Equivar corpse. Now let's all calm down and bury the poor thing before it attracts scavengers that try to kill us. Edit: Looks like I was ninja'd, at least partially, by Ildur. Anyway, in response to this: No, no they didn't. The second parsing I've pointed out was a believable enough interpretation (and, for myself and Yasfan at least, the more natural parsing) that most people wouldn't have known you meant the first parsing until after you clarified. I actually had to think for a while before realizing that there were two valid parsings of the statement, one of which matched what you said you were saying. Edited January 8, 2016 by Ekzentric Lohner | |} ---- ---- Cause typo's is the easiest argument to take apart. | |} ---- ---- ---- No, actually, I didn't. I didn't know what you meant because I can't read your mind, I have to go by what you write. And after you wrote what you wrote, instead of saying "Oh, my bad, I used the wrong word. What I really meant was..." as your error was repeatedly pointed out to you, your response was to rant your way through several of the next posts about how you were being taken out of context when in fact you weren't. Hurling insults the whole way, I might add, all the way up to the present time. Look at how many posts it has taken just to get you to agree that you actually wrote something you really did write. Do you seriously think I want to discuss anything complicated with you, when discussing something as simple as "you actually said X" requires several pages of argument and taking a flurry of insults from you? No thanks. I have better ways to spend my time. | |} ---- I think part of the issue is not that it's justifyable so much as it's not too dissimilar from Exile habits. The only difference is scale due to the size of both organization. Exiles kill for resources as well. So if it's evil to do it then it's evil for both. If it's a shade of grey then we shouldn't talk about it as if it's black and white. The Dominion doesn't act with depraved indifference to their own as the HernCo said the lowborn have a pretty comfortable life on Cassus. It's only on Nexus that there is so little oversight that some highborn are able to take advantage of the situation. But, when we see it happen, we see that it is also self policed by the Dominion. The Exiles almost destroyed the empire. They lost and now the Empire continues to hunt them. If we assume the Granok we justified in making the first violent move, we have to acknowledge that they Granok continue to look for any opportunity to attack a foe that they already defeated. Very similar. So, these are examples of the actual lore that would serve to balance out how we see the factions, if they were included. Leaving out the negative aspects and hard truths of the Exile faction does create an effect that would be considered bias. | |} ---- For what it's worth, I had no trouble understanding the intent of you post, simply by examining the examples in it that only serve the purpose of reinforceing the preceding statement. And your responses to the responses of that post seemed to solidly reinforce that same intent. | |} ---- ---- Don't bother Syl. That's how they have to win arguments, picking apart on spelling cause they apparently can't think for 5 minutes that they might not be dealing with native speakers of the English language. Here, to cheer you up: | |} ---- At that point, it seems to me that the argument, at least between you and Yasfan, was more about whether or not you said what you meant, not whether or not what you meant to say was accurate. If you stated anywhere that you'd mistyped or worded things ambiguously, I missed it - your posts read more like "Stop misinterpreting what I wrote!" than "What I meant to write was...", at least to me. I'm sorry you got stuck in the middle of a "Someone is Wrong on the Internet" storm. Edited January 8, 2016 by Ekzentric Lohner | |} ---- You mean that we shouldn't ask for accuracy when trying to communicate with each other? Because that sounds like a good way to get everyone's thoughts mistinterpreted. And I'm sorry, but I think it's very clear that saying "A is Something" is not remotely the same as "A is NOT Something". No matter what indoeuropean or germanic language you speak in. | |} ---- ---- Yes? And Aurin eat completely sentient and self aware organisms that are harmless, Exiles torture Dominion POWs, the Exiles risked the future of known galactic civilization by helping the Mordesh, the Granok pointlessly murder anyone who they dont like, etc. Umm the Draken CHOSE an area that was bare dirt if I'm not mistaken. I wasn't aware that they specifically modified the location into that. You also realize that you are metagaming with the Mordesh fact, right? The FACT is that their planet had an outbreak of the deadliest disease known to science and doing anything BUT quarantining the planet would have been simply foolish. You can not use the end result of the lore to justify what the Exiles did. You are essentially saying that because the Exiles helped the Mordesh and because the contagion didnt spread for lore reasons after the fact, the quarantine was was not justified? Think about that for one second. What that means is that the Dominion should have known that the lore itself would have stopped the contagion, and thus they should not have bothered with quarantining the planet. Ummmm yeah. No. The FACT is that the Exiles could have very easily have doomed the the entire galaxy if the contagion spread when they were helping the Mordesh. By the magic of plot convenience the contagion didn't do that. And no, what? When the hell did I say they weren't evil because they didn't commit genocide? I said there's more to it than that. They may be evil, or at least more evil than the Exiles, but I am saying THERE IS MORE TO IT. If they are as evil as you say they are, then why didn't they just bombard the planet from orbit to spite the Granok? My point was that there's more to it. How could you not get that? I literally said that word for word. And no, my point was that the Dominion COULD have killed all the Granok afterwards without losing a single soldier and it would have eliminated a potential threat, BUT THEY DIDN'T. And maybe next time the Granok shouldn't MURDER ambassadors, even if said ambassadors are rude. If you kill people for no reason, then it's your fault for starting a war. And what part of "the home world of the Aurin" don't you get? The planet IS automatically a threat because it harbors so many Aurin, a species that the Dominion is currently at war with. Not to mention getting resources out of it. And like I said, if you want to blame someone first and foremost, blame the Exiles. So you ignored most of what I said. What a surprise. Edited January 8, 2016 by Mental Surge | |} ---- No, you claimed that we were taking it 'out of context' and that what you HAD IN FACT SAID was that they were both neutral and that we should 'read it again'. It wasn't until we made it obvious why that couldn't be the case that you decided to say that faction neutrality (to call it some way) was NOT what you HAD IN FACT SAID but what YOU MEANT. All the insults and 'hysterics' weren't a particularly smart move, either, specially considering for how long they went. Language mishaps can happen and get people to misunderstand each other hilariously, that's a given. But don't try to sell yourself as the one person who acted reasoanbly here, because you weren't. Edited January 8, 2016 by Ildur | |} ----